Justice, Equality, Fairness, Desert, Rights, Free Will, Responsibility, and Luck 1 John Rawls defended a view he famously called “justice as fairness.” 2 I have defended a position I called “equality as comparative fairness.” 3 The notions of justice, equality, and fairness are all intimately related to each other, and to a host of other notions, such as desert, rights, free will, responsibility, and luck. This chapter aims to illuminate some connections between these deeply important overlapping notions. Each of these notions is exceedingly complex. Hence, a full treatment of them is not possible here. Still, by focusing on a few key aspects of these notions some progress can be made in understanding the relations between them. The chapter is divided into two main parts. In part one, I discuss justice. I begin by distinguishing between different conceptions of justice, including a conception of justice as involving the respecting of rights, two different versions of proportional justice, and the Rawlsian conception of justice as fairness. I then note the importance of distinguishing between acting justly, where one is acting for agent-relative justice-based reasons, and acting for reasons of justice, where one is acting for agent-neutral justice-based reasons In part two, I discuss equality. Arguing that there is an intimate connection between a central concern for equality and a concern about comparative fairness, I focus on a view I call equality as comparative fairness. I discuss luck egalitarianism, the option/brute luck distinction, the role of responsibility and desert, and the difference between comparative fairness and comparative justice. I also argue that egalitarians should be concerned about both equality of opportunity and equality of welfare broadly construed, about both ex ante and ex post equality, and about both procedural and substantive fairness. 1
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Justice, Equality, Fairness, Desert, Rights, Free Will, Responsibility, and Luck1
John Rawls defended a view he famously called “justice as fairness.”2 I have
defended a position I called “equality as comparative fairness.”3 The notions of justice,
equality, and fairness are all intimately related to each other, and to a host of other notions,
such as desert, rights, free will, responsibility, and luck. This chapter aims to illuminate
some connections between these deeply important overlapping notions.
Each of these notions is exceedingly complex. Hence, a full treatment of them is not
possible here. Still, by focusing on a few key aspects of these notions some progress can be
made in understanding the relations between them.
The chapter is divided into two main parts. In part one, I discuss justice. I begin by
distinguishing between different conceptions of justice, including a conception of justice as
involving the respecting of rights, two different versions of proportional justice, and the
Rawlsian conception of justice as fairness. I then note the importance of distinguishing
between acting justly, where one is acting for agent-relative justice-based reasons, and acting
for reasons of justice, where one is acting for agent-neutral justice-based reasons
In part two, I discuss equality. Arguing that there is an intimate connection between a
central concern for equality and a concern about comparative fairness, I focus on a view I
call equality as comparative fairness. I discuss luck egalitarianism, the option/brute luck
distinction, the role of responsibility and desert, and the difference between comparative
fairness and comparative justice. I also argue that egalitarians should be concerned about
both equality of opportunity and equality of welfare broadly construed, about both ex ante
and ex post equality, and about both procedural and substantive fairness.
1
The chapter reveals that different plausible conceptions of justice and equality have
different and important connections with fairness, desert, rights, free will, responsibility, and
luck. The chapter also explores some implications of these different conceptions.
Part I. Justice
A. Recognizing some different conceptions of justice.
The notion of justice is extremely rich and complex. Correspondingly, there are many
powerfully attractive and deeply important conceptions of justice. I shall discuss several of
these here.
One general conception of justice is that justice requires giving each person her “due.”
This conception, dating back at least to Plato, is widely accepted.4 But this conception gives
rise to many distinct alternative views about what justice requires, tracking different substantive
views about what people are “due.”
One particular view about what people are “due” is the respecting of their rights. On
this view, the notion of justice is tied to the notions of rights and rights violations. Specifically,
on this conception an individual or society acts unjustly when, and only when, it violates
someone’s rights. If, for example, you have a right to life or property, and I violate that right by
killing you or taking your property, I act unjustly in so treating you. A view of this sort,
combined with a narrow, parsimonious, conception of rights, is advocated by Robert Nozick
and Jan Narveson.5
Clearly, on this conception of justice it is crucially important to determine the nature and
scope of rights. Are there any natural rights, or are all rights social in basis? Are there any
positive rights—rights to assistance, for example, to adequate food, shelter, or medical care—or
only negative rights—rights not to be harmed, or interfered with in certain ways, for example, to
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not be killed, tortured, or have one’s property taken away. Are there any inalienable rights, and
if so what are they? Are some rights alienable, and if so, under what conditions?
Most people believe that most rights are alienable by word or deed. I can, for example,
voluntarily renounce my right to property or not to be harmed, in which case you may take my
property or harm me for certain desirable goals without acting unjustly. Similarly, many
believe that certain of my rights are conditional upon my respecting similar rights in others.
Thus, on this view, justice, rights, and responsibility are intimately entwined. My responsible
actions can limit or alter the scope of my rights, and thereby affect what may be justly done to
me. So, for example, if I steal from another or harm an innocent person, then the state may
perhaps fine or incarcerate me without violating my rights or acting unjustly. Likewise, there is
no rights violation, and hence no injustice, if the state duns the wages of a parent who
abandoned his children.
What about the role of luck? Well, I may not be able to lose a right because of bad luck,
but the rights one has may be conditional on certain states whose obtaining may be a matter of
luck. For example, I have a right not to have my property taken from me, provided I meet my
fiscal responsibilities towards others. If, however, I default on my car payments, my car may be
taken from me without violating my rights, and hence not unjustly in the sense under
discussion, even if the only reason I defaulted on the payments is due to bad luck. Perhaps I
have innocently come down with a rare disease and cannot work, or my employer has moved
overseas, or my spouse has run off with my life’s savings! Similarly, there is an old saying that
“your rights end where the next person’s nose begins.” In accordance with this, many believe
that even such fundamental rights as the rights to life and liberty are circumscribed by the
conditions in which I find myself, including circumstances beyond my control. Thus, many
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believe that if I posed a sufficiently serious threat to enough others—say, if I developed a highly
infectious fatal disease—it would be neither unjust, nor a rights violation, if I were quarantined
against my will, or perhaps, if necessary, even killed.
So, on one important view there is a connection between justice and rights, and the
connection is such that both individual responsibility and luck may play a significant role in
how one may be justly treated.
Two other important conceptions of justice are alternative versions of proportional
justice. The principle of proportional justice might be roughly framed as follows: there ought
to be a proportion between living well and faring well. This notion is intimately connected to
the notion of desert. Intuitively, the thought is that insofar as one lives well, one deserves to
fare well, and in a fully just world one would fare well. Unfortunately, the notion of “living
well” is ambiguous. It may mean that one is doing well—that is, acting rightly or doing good
deeds. Alternatively, it may mean that one is being well—that is, possessing good character or
high moral virtue. I don’t think these positions have been sufficiently distinguished, since they
tend to agree about most actual cases. Nevertheless, they are distinct positions with different
implications, and though there is something to be said for each, I favor a version of the latter.
Suppose that Alan and Randi are both equally virtuous. Each would do everything
possible to help someone in need. But Alan lives in a neighborhood where he can effectively
help someone three times a week, while Randi lives in a neighborhood where she can only
effectively help someone once a week. If, in fact, Randi would do everything Alan actually
does, if she were in his position, and vice versa, then on the view of proportional justice I favor
Alan and Randi ought to fare equally well, from the standpoint of justice, even if in fact, given
their different circumstances, Alan actually acts rightly, and does good, more often than Randi.
4
Though not conclusive, such considerations lead me to think that the most plausible versions of
proportional justice should focus on character more than actions. As such, it is such versions of
proportional justice, properly qualified, that I shall focus on here.
There are two main versions of proportional justice. The first corresponds to a
conception of absolute justice or desert. This reflects the general conception, noted above, that
justice involves each person receiving her due, but the thought is that people should fare well
precisely to the extent that they are morally deserving, where this is a function of their virtue or
moral character.6 On this view, it is unjust when one fares either better or worse than one
morally deserves to, where this is understood in absolute terms. So, for example, saints
(understood as extremely virtuous people) deserve to fare extremely well, sinners (understood
as extremely vicious people) extremely poorly, and the rest of us somewhere in between. Thus,
on this view, it would be unjust for a saint to fare extremely poorly, and likewise for a sinner to
fare extremely well.
The second main version of proportional justice corresponds to a conception of
comparative justice or desert.7 On this view, to the extent that someone is more virtuous than
another she deserves to live a proportionally better life. Here, justice determines the relative
standing of the two lives, but not their absolute standing. John Broome defends such a
conception of proportional justice.8 For Broome, it would be unjust for sinners to fare better
than saints, but it wouldn’t be unjust for both to fare well, or poorly, as long as the saints fared
better than the sinners in proportion to how much more virtuous they were. Thus, for Broome,
“Sinners should be worse off than saints, but … justice does not determine how well off each
group should be absolutely.” To Broome, a world containing only saints who fare poorly due to
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natural conditions may not be “a very good one” but it is not unjust. “Similarly,” Broome
writes, “in a world containing only sinners, I see no injustice if the sinners fare well.”9
Some people believe that all proportional justice requires is that there be the relevant
connection between living well and faring well, no (or few) questions asked, as it were. On this
view, it doesn’t matter why one is, or is not, virtuous or vicious, what matters is simply whether
one is virtuous or vicious, and to what extent. My own view is that this makes a mockery of the
notion of justice. If the only reason I am virtuous and you vicious is that we have each been
brainwashed or drugged to be the way we are, then I believe that neither of us is responsible for
our character, and neither of us is morally deserving of faring well or faring poorly. In such a
case, I believe that absolute justice would not require that I fare well, and you poorly, and
comparative justice would not require that I fare better than you; similarly, if our characters are
simply the result of genetic endowment or manipulation for which we are not responsible. So,
for example, if God created Adam to be perfectly virtuous, and Eve to be perfectly vicious, and
then sent Adam to a wonderful afterlife and Eve to a terrible one, he could not, in my view,
defend his actions or their afterlives as just. More particularly, he could not claim to have acted
in accordance with either absolute or comparative justice, since Adam doesn’t deserve a
wonderful afterlife, Eve doesn’t deserve a terrible afterlife, and neither deserves to be better off
than the other.
Thus, on my view, the conception of proportional justice understood in terms of absolute
justice sees a tight connection between justice, moral desert, and responsibility. People must, in
a robust sense, be responsible for their characters for them to be morally deserving of being well
or poorly off in virtue of their characters, and hence for it to be a matter of absolute justice that
they be well off in direct proportion to the degree to which they are virtuous. On this view,
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good or bad luck that results in our getting either more or less than we deserve should be
rectified, though good or bad luck that results in our getting what we actually deserve should
not. On the other hand, luck can have no fundamental role to play in the formation of our
characters. Insofar as it is a matter of luck whether we are virtuous or vicious, we are not
morally deserving of faring well or poorly, and the notion of absolute justice loses its traction.
My own view is that the robust conception of responsibility required to make sense of
our deepest convictions regarding absolute justice is inextricably tied to the mare’s nest of free
will. More specifically, I believe that the most compelling conception of absolute justice
requires the kind of free will that is incompatible with both determinism and indeterminism, and
that is notoriously difficult to square with our scientific world view and the obvious way in
which both nature and nurture influence our characters. I think we must face this fact head on,
and not try to deny it or run from it. I am aware, of course, that many will regard my claims
here as tantamount to a reductio of the notion of absolute justice. But I don’t share this
sentiment. Though I don’t have the foggiest idea how to solve the mare’s nest of (meaningful!)
free will, I believe that there is reason to believe, or at least hope, that many rational beings are
sufficiently free, in the relevant sense, as to make attributions of responsibility for their
characters appropriate. Correspondingly, I suspect that the notion of absolute justice is not
incoherent—even if we don’t understand how it could be coherent—and believe that it should
be given significant weight in our moral deliberations. Though I hasten to add that there may be
many cases where people are not (fully) responsible for their characters, in which cases the
notion of absolute justice will not be (fully or straightforwardly) applicable.
Let us next consider the view of proportional justice that involves a commitment to
comparative justice or desert. Although most advocates of comparative justice probably
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assume that most people are responsible for their choices and character, the notion of
comparative justice does not require that there be meaningful free will for it to retain its
intuitive plausibility and force. According to comparative justice, if two people are responsible
for the extent to which they are virtuous, then one person should fare better than another in
proportion to the extent to which she is more virtuous; which is to say, only to the extent that
she is morally more deserving than the other of faring well. But this suggests that if one person
is not morally more deserving than another, then it is unjust if they do not fare equally well.
Thus, as I understand this view, in a world where there is no meaningful free will, everyone is
equally deserving—as well as equally undeserving!—since no one morally deserves anything at
all. Since, according to comparative justice, at least as I understand it, it is unjust for one person
to be worse off than another who is no more deserving than she, in such a world all inequalities
in terms of overall quality of life would be comparatively unjust.
Let me sum up the preceding discussion. On my view, in a world lacking meaningful
free will—for example, a purely deterministic or indeterministic world—no one would be
morally deserving of anything. A fortiori, no one would morally deserve to fare well or poorly
or at any particular level, and the conception of absolute justice would lose its traction. But a
meaningful conception of comparative justice would remain. In such a world, all substantive
inequalities would involve some being worse off than others no more deserving than they, and
this would be comparatively unjust. Correspondingly, in such a world comparative justice
would amount to a version of egalitarianism. All inequalities would be solely due to luck, and
comparative justice would seek to rectify the impact of such luck by removing all inequalities of
normative significance.10 So, in a world with meaningful free will, where people are
responsible for their choices and characters, both absolute and comparative justice will be
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plausible, and proportional justice will be compatible with, and almost certainly require,
inequality. But in a world lacking meaningful free will—which some people believe is ours—
only comparative justice will be plausible, and proportional justice will require equality.
Finally, let me mention Rawls’s well-known conception of justice as fairness. On
Rawls’s view, “Justice is the first virtue of social institutions,”11 and there are two principles of
justice by which a society’s basic structure, or principles and institutions, are to be judged:
“First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with
a similar liberty for others. Second: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that
they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone’s advantage, and (b) attached to
positions and offices open to all.”12 Clause (a) of the second principle is fleshed out into
Rawls’s famous Difference Principle: society’s principles and institutions are to be arranged so
as to maximize the expectations of the representative member of society’s worst off group.13
Importantly, in A Theory of Justice, Rawls restricts the scope of his claims to “sufficiently
developed” societies, and contends that his two principles may not govern the relations between
sovereign nations. Later, he further suggests that his two principles may only apply to modern
western-style democracies.
Rawls’s theory of justice as fairness gives expression to a conception that we have of
ourselves as free and equal rational beings.14 But as Rawls later emphasizes, his conception of
justice as fairness is political, not metaphysical, so he is not committed to free will in any deep,
metaphysical, sense.15 His concern is with a conception of social justice, and for Rawls
questions about individual responsibility have little, if any, bearing on whether or not we should
regard society’s basic structures as just.
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In a key paragraph illuminating the aim, scope, and motivation of his position, Rawls
writes the following:
The intuitive idea is that since everyone’s well-being depends on a scheme of cooperation without which no one could have a satisfactory life, the division of advantages should be such as to draw forth the willing cooperation of everyone taking part in it, including those less well situated. Yet this can be expected only if reasonable terms are proposed. The two principles [of justice] mentioned seem to be a fair agreement on the basis of which those better endowed, or more fortunate in their social position, neither of which we can be said to deserve, could expect the willing cooperation of others when some workable scheme is a necessary condition of the welfare of all.16 Once we decide to look for a conception of justice that nullifies the accidents of natural endowment and the contingencies of social circumstance as counters in quest for political and economic advantage, we are led to these principles. They express the result of leaving aside those aspects of the social world that seem arbitrary from a moral point of view.17
So, for Rawls, social justice amongst free and equal rational beings reflects recognition
of the fact that no one deserves the “accidents of natural endowment” or the “contingencies of
social circumstances.” Recognizing that such factors are “arbitrary from a moral point of
view,” Rawls believes that it will only be “reasonable” and “fair” for the disadvantaged to agree
to a set of principles and institutions comprising society’s basic structure that, in essence, treats
natural endowments and social circumstances as common assets to be used for everyone’s
benefit. In particular, Rawls believes that the correct principles of justice will tolerate
inequalities in natural endowments and social circumstances only to the extent that they can be
harnessed for the maximal benefit of those most disadvantaged by such morally arbitrary
inequalities. Since, arguably, it is a matter of luck whether one is advantaged in one’s natural
and social circumstances, Rawls’s principles of justice can be seen as attempting, among other
things, to mitigate the role that society allows luck to play in its citizens’ lives.
It is important to emphasize that in A Theory of Justice, Rawls offered his theory of
justice as fairness strictly as a theory of social justice, and in particular as a theory for assessing
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the justness of a society’s principles and institutions with respect to how it treats its own
citizens, when the society is a sufficiently advanced western-style democracy. As Rawls
acknowledged, his theory does not capture the whole of our notion of justice. Thus, in A Theory
of Justice, Rawls says little about what justice requires of societies that are not sufficiently
advanced western-style democracies, of individuals in their treatment of others, or of societies
in their treatment of other societies or non-citizens.18
I have canvassed four specific conceptions of justice. Each is plausible and important.
Though much more needs to be said about these issues, it is apparent that the different
conceptions of justice are connected, in different ways and to varying degrees, with the related
notions of fairness, equality, desert, rights, responsibility, and luck. Thus, a full understanding
of the dictates of justice requires a much better understanding of the nature and significance of
these other, related, notions.
B. Acting justly versus acting for reasons of justice.
Having recognized several plausible and important conceptions of justice, let me next
introduce an important, but often overlooked, distinction between acting justly and acting for
reasons of justice. Let us say that one acts justly when one acts for agent-relative justice-based
reasons, whereas one acts for reasons of justice when one acts for agent-neutral justice-based
reasons. These categories are not exclusionary. One might act for both agent-relative and
agent-neutral justice-based reasons. The distinction I have in mind can be illustrated with the
aid of the following examples.
Suppose that John has promised to pay Mary $100 for a day’s work. If Mary does the
work, then John acts justly if he pays her, and unjustly if he doesn’t. Suppose now that John
decides to cheat Mary, and not pay her. I can try to talk John into paying Mary, but he’s my
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boss, and I’m afraid he’ll fire me if I do. It would be good of me to talk with John, perhaps I
even act wrongly if I don’t. Still, if I fail to confront John, he’s the one who is acting unjustly,
not me. I’m (just!) being a coward. Still, there are reasons of justice for me to talk with John.
If I do, I may promote a just situation. He may heed my words and act justly. Suppose I do talk
to John, and it has the desired effect. In that case, I’d say I’ve acted courageously, perhaps even
rightly, but not justly. John is the one who has acted justly, I’ve merely acted for reasons of
justice.
Analogously, suppose John is going to pay Mary what he owes her, but I want him to
lend me the $100 instead. Suppose I know that if I ask John to lend me the $100 he will do so,
and not pay Mary. I then have reasons of justice not to ask John for the money. But if I ask
John to lend me the money and he does, I may be acting selfishly, and perhaps even wrongly,
but I’m not the one acting unjustly, John is. John is the one who owes Mary the money, not me.
So, accordingly, we can distinguish between agent-relative justice-based reasons, which
are those an individual must comply with to avoid acting unjustly, and agent-neutral justice-
based reasons, which are those anyone might have to help promote a more just situation.
Agent-neutral reasons are distinct from agent-relative reasons, but both are important.
Notice, nothing I have said bears on the relative weight of agent-relative or agent-neutral
justice-based reasons. Although we often think of agent-relative justice-based reasons as
having overwhelmingly compelling force (“I cannot act unjustly”), in fact, there are stronger
and weaker agent-relative justice-based reasons. For example, while I have a strong agent-
relative reason not to enslave another, I only have a weak agent-relative reason not to take my
brother’s candy. Likewise, there might be stronger and weaker agent-neutral justice-based
reasons. For example, while I might have a strong agent-neutral reason to help end child
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exploitation, if I can, I might only have a weak agent-neutral reason to ensure that my colleague
carefully reads the admissions folders.
Though permitting or tolerating injustice may not be the same moral shortcoming as
acting unjustly, it is important to bear in mind that agent-neutral justice-based reasons are still
reasons of justice. And strong reasons of justice, whether agent-relative or agent-neutral, are
not to be sniffed at lightly. Or so I contend, though I cannot argue for this here.
Suppose, then, that A would be a more just outcome than B. On the view sketched
above, everyone will have justice-based reasons to promote A rather than B, if they can. If
failing to promote A rather than B, would be acting unjustly, then at least some of the justice-
based reasons for promoting A would be agent-relative. If not, then the justice-based reasons
would be agent-neutral. But, as emphasized above, they would still be reasons of justice, and
they may still carry significant moral weight.
The distinction between different kinds of justice-based reasons helps illuminate the
nature and scope of the different conceptions of justice. Insofar as justice is seen as involving
the respecting of rights, agent-relative reasons are primary, and it makes most sense to talk of
particular individuals as acting justly or unjustly when they respect or violate other people’s
rights. Insofar as justice is seen as involving proportional justice, whether absolute or
comparative, agent-neutral reasons are primary. We don’t normally think that each individual is
responsible for seeing that people “get what they deserve” in the senses required by proportional
justice; hence, we won’t accuse someone of acting unjustly just because they haven’t acted so as
to make good people fare well, bad people fare poorly, or good people fare well relative to bad
people. Still, we can recognize that the state of affairs where good people fare well, or better
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than bad people, would be proportionally just, and hence that there are agent-neutral reasons of
justice to promote such a state of affairs if we can.
To see the importance of the distinction between agent-relative and agent-neutral
justice-based reasons, imagine that someone in another society who has responsibly
developed a saintly character has been the victim of great natural misfortune. Suppose, in
fact, that despite the best possible personal and social responses to her situation, her life
is one of unremitting pain and misery, though this doesn’t stop her from maintaining her
saintly character and continually aiding others. If one believes in the absolute conception
of proportional justice, one will believe that it is naturally unjust that this saint’s life has
gone so badly. Since she has lived well she deserves to fare well, and it is a bad thing—
naturally unjust—if she doesn’t.
Suppose now that it becomes possible to easily improve the saint’s life. Do we
have reason to do so? On the view in question we have a justice-based reason to improve
her life—but it is an agent-neutral justice-based reason, not an agent-relative one. If we
don’t help the saint we may not be acting unjustly—since we did not cause her plight,
promise to help her, and so on—but even so we have a reason of justice to help the saint.
Helping the saint would promote justice by promoting a better proportion between living
well and faring well.
Notice, it may be impossible for us to help the saint. On my view, this would be a
case of irremediable natural injustice. It wouldn’t merely be that her life was tragic,
though it would be that too, rather she would be a victim of cosmic or natural injustice.
What is the point of calling such a situation unjust? It tells us something important about
the situation. It tells us that if, contrary to fact, we could do something about it, then,
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ceteris paribus, we should do something about it, and one of the reasons to do so would
be to bring about a proportion between the saint’s level of well being and her moral
desert or character. In aiding the saint we would not necessarily be acting justly, but we
would be promoting absolute justice. We would be acting for reasons of justice.
Similar remarks would apply, mutatis mutandis, if one accepted the comparative
conception of proportional justice.
Some people, like Robert Nozick and Jan Narveson, would acknowledge that the
saint’s misfortune is regrettable, and that it would be nice, good, and perhaps even
desirable for us to act on her behalf; but they vehemently deny that we act unjustly if we
fail to do so.19 On their view, justice only requires us to rectify those misfortunes for
which we are, in some relatively narrow and straightforward sense, directly and socially
responsible.20 Correspondingly, they think that victims of natural misfortune may
warrant our sympathy, and that there may be various reasons to aid them, but that they
have no claim on us regarding justice.
Many people feel some force to Nozick and Narveson’s claim that I don’t act
unjustly simply by failing to rectify a situation for which I am not responsible. This
claim seemingly tracks the widespread view that there is a big difference between the
culpability of someone who exploits another, and someone who “merely” fails to aid a
victim of natural misfortune. By the same token, however, many of these same people
feel the force of proportional justice, believing that it is unjust for the saint to suffer, or to
be worse off than the sinner, even if this results from natural misfortune. The distinction
between agent-relative and agent-neutral justice-based reasons helps reconcile these
beliefs. Perhaps Nozick and Narveson are right that there is an important source of
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justice-based reasons, agent-relative reasons, that don’t apply to me in situations for
which I’m not responsible. Correspondingly, Nozick and Narveson may be able to
plausibly claim that I’m not acting unjustly, if I fail to remedy a situation I’m not
responsible for producing. Even so, there may be powerful agent-neutral justice-based
reasons to do something about the situation. If we believe it would be more just for the
saint to fare well, and for the saint to fare better than the sinner, we may also believe that
we have reasons of justice to promote such outcomes if we can, even if we are not acting
unjustly if we fail to do so. We see, then, that there is room for capturing what seems
plausible about Nozick and Narveson’s position, without having to deny that there may
be reasons of justice to help those whose plight we are not responsible for producing.
Part II. Equality
Just as there are many different conceptions of justice, there are many different
conceptions of equality. In this part, I explore some connections between one central
conception of equality, and the notions of fairness, luck, and responsibility. I believe that
many of the points made here are directly relevant to, and help illuminate, certain central
conceptions of justice, but I shall not pursue this here.
A. Fairness, luck, and responsibility.
If I give one piece of candy to Andrea, and two to Rebecca, Andrea will immediately
assert "unfair!" This natural reaction suggests an intimate connection between equality and
fairness. I believe that there is one central conception of equality—I do not claim it is the
only one—that focuses on how people fare relative to each other, where the concern for
equality is not separable from our concern for a certain aspect of fairness; they are part and
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parcel of a single concern. On this conception we say that certain inequalities are bad, or
objectionable, when, and because, they are comparatively unfair; but by the same token, we
say that there is a certain kind of comparative unfairness in certain kinds of undeserved
inequalities. As indicated above, I now call this conception of equality equality as
comparative fairness,21 and it is this conception that I shall be addressing throughout this
chapter. So, egalitarians of my sort are not motivated by envy, as is frequently charged, but
by a particular conception of fairness.
Many contemporary egalitarians, including Gerald Cohen, Ronald Dworkin, and
Richard Arneson, have been identified as so-called luck egalitarians.22 Acknowledging the
importance of autonomy and personal responsibility, luck egalitarianism supposedly aims to
rectify the influence of luck in people's lives. Correspondingly, a canonical formulation of
luck egalitarianism, invoked by both Cohen and myself, is that it is bad when one person is
worse off than another through no fault or choice of her own.23 So, luck egalitarians object
when equally deserving people are unequally well off, but not when one person is worse off
than another due to her own responsible choices, say to pursue a life of leisure or crime.
In fact, I think luck egalitarianism has been misunderstood by both its proponents and
its opponents. The egalitarian’s fundamental concern isn’t with luck per se, or even with
whether or not someone is worse off than another through no fault or choice of her own, it is,
as noted above, with comparative fairness. But people have been confused about this
because, as it happens, in most paradigmatic cases where inequality involves comparative
unfairness it also involves luck, or someone being worse off than another through no fault or
choice of her own.
17
On close examination, the intimate connection between equality and fairness
illuminates the ultimate role that luck plays in egalitarian thinking, as well as the
relevance and limitations of the “through no fault or choice of their own” clause. Among
equally deserving people, it is bad, because unfair, for some to be worse off than others
through no fault or choice of their own. But among unequally deserving people it isn’t
bad, because not unfair, for someone less deserving to be worse off than someone more
deserving, even if the former is worse off through no fault or choice of his own. For
example, egalitarians needn’t object if a fully responsible criminal is worse off than a
law-abiding citizen, even if the criminal craftily avoided capture, and so is only worse off
because, through no fault or choice of his own, a falling tree branch injured him.
Additionally, in some cases inequality is bad, because unfair, even though the
worse off are responsible for their plight; as when the worse off are so because they
chose to do their duty, or perhaps acted supererogatorily, in adverse circumstances not of
their making. So, for example, if I’m unlucky enough to walk by a drowning child, and I
injure myself saving her, the egalitarian might think it unfair that I end up worse off than
others, even though I am so as a result of my own responsible free choice to do my duty
to help someone in need.24
Correspondingly, on reflection, luck itself is neither good nor bad from the
egalitarian standpoint. Egalitarians object to luck that leaves equally deserving people
unequally well off, not to luck that makes equally deserving people equally well off, or
renders unequally deserving people proportionally well off. Thus, luck will be opposed
only to the extent that it undermines comparative fairness.
18
Some luck egalitarians distinguish between option luck, to which we responsibly open
ourselves, and brute luck, which simply "befalls" us, unbidden.25 This distinction’s
advocates believe that any option luck inequalities—e.g. those resulting from people
autonomously choosing to gamble or invest in the stock market—are unobjectionable, while
brute luck inequalities—e.g. those resulting from genetic variations or unavoidable
accidents—are objectionable.
I reject the way the option/brute luck distinction is typically invoked. In part, this is
because drawing the line between them is difficult. But, more importantly, I believe it is
objectionable if Mary takes a prudent risk, and John an imprudent one, yet Mary fares much
worse than John, because she is the victim of bad, and he the beneficiary of good, option
luck. Likewise, I believe there is an egalitarian objection if Mary and John are equally
deserving, and choose similar options, but John ends up much better off than Mary because
he enjoys vastly greater option luck. As with paradigmatic cases involving brute luck, in
such a case Mary ends up much worse off than John, though she is in no way less deserving.
This seems patently unfair. It is a case of comparative unfairness to which my kind of
egalitarian should object.
This discussion is relevant to many public policy issues. If it is true that people can
have personal responsibility for their actions in a way compatible with a meaningful
conception of desert—a big “if”, but one that many accept, and that I shall assume for this
discussion—then not all substantive inequalities will involve comparative unfairness, and
hence be objectionable from an egalitarian standpoint. This position has deep and important
implications for the nature and extent of our obligations towards the less fortunate whose
predicaments resulted from their own fully responsible choices. This might include
19
conditions resulting from individually responsible choices involving job selection, lifestyle,
risky behavior, and so on.
Clearly, this issue is too large to deal adequately with here, but let me just make five
relevant points. First, this discussion’s starting point is that the mere fact that some are worse
off than others, does not mean that there is an egalitarian reason to aid them. There is an
egalitarian reason to aid someone if her situation is unfair relative to others, and whether this
is so depends on pertinent facts of individual responsibility.
Second, even if there is no egalitarian reason to aid someone needy, many powerful
normative considerations may dictate our doing so. These may include maximin or
prioritarian considerations that give special weight to the claims of the worse off,
humanitarian considerations to ease pain and suffering, utilitarian reasons to promote the
general welfare, virtue-related reasons of compassion, mercy, beneficence, and forgiveness,
and so on. As I have argued elsewhere, egalitarians are rightly committed to pluralism, and
we have to be sensitive to the full range of reasons for aiding the needy besides those of
comparative fairness.
But third, where other morally relevant factors are sufficiently close, egalitarian
reasons of comparative fairness may help determine who has the strongest moral claim on
scarce resources. For example, if one has to choose between who gets the last available bed
in the intensive care unit, perhaps it should go to the innocent pedestrian, rather than the
drunk driver who ran into him. (Though this point raises many complicated questions, some
of which I shall return to shortly.26)
Fourth, regarding comparative fairness, it is crucial that one determine appropriate
comparison classes, so that one is comparing all relevant types of behavior in the same way.
20
For example, it would be objectionable to downgrade the medical claims of AIDS patients
who engaged in unprotected sex, if one wasn’t similarly prepared to downgrade the medical
claims of pregnant women who engaged in unprotected sex, or perhaps obese stroke victims
who did nothing to curb their appetite.
Fifth, in accordance with my point about option luck, it is important for comparative
fairness that one not merely compare the “losers” of those making poor choices with the
“winners” of those making good choices, but that, in addition, one compare the winners and
losers of both categories with each other. Most people who overeat don’t have a stroke, and
most helmetless motorcyclists don’t end up in the emergency room. Thus, regarding
comparative fairness, one must remember that full responsibility for one’s choices doesn’t
entail full responsibility for one’s predicament. Indeed, as Kant rightly saw, the two are only
loosely, and coincidentally, connected. Correspondingly, consideration of equality as
comparative fairness requires that we pay attention not only to actual outcomes, but to the
extent to which different people end up better and worse off than the expected value of their
choices. Unfortunately, I cannot pursue these issues here.
Let us return to the case of the drunk driver who was fully responsible for getting
drunk and then hit a pedestrian. By hypothesis, the drunk driver is responsible in a way the
pedestrian is not for both being in need of urgent care.27 And I suggested that this may
provide some reason for giving the ICU’s last available bed to the pedestrian rather than the
driver, as it might be unfair if the “guilty” person responsible for the accident were saved
rather than the “innocent” victim of his behavior. But, as I said, the situation is complicated.
We might say there is an important local reason of comparative fairness to favor the
pedestrian over the drunk driver in this case, attributable to their different degrees of
21
responsibility for the specific situation they each now face; but there are also global reasons
of comparative fairness to consider, at least ideally, from an egalitarian perspective in
determining who should get the last hospital bed.
Suppose that the drunk driver was a saint who had never been drunk before and had
no reason to believe that his getting drunk would produce such a tragic outcome. Suppose,
further, that despite the vast good he had done for others, his own life had been filled with
suffering and tragedy. Next, suppose that the pedestrian was an evil man who had harmed
countless innocents, but whose own life had overflowed with good fortune. Here,
egalitarianism might favor giving the last bed to the driver, rather than the pedestrian,
notwithstanding the driver’s responsibility for their current dire predicament.
I submit, then, that individual responsibility is important from the egalitarian
perspective, but it clearly isn’t all that matters. Moreover, insofar as it does matter, global
responsibility for one’s overall character and predicament matters, not merely local
responsibility for any specific predicament one confronts.
An interesting question is whether egalitarians should treat both “local” and “non-
local” components of one’s global responsibility for a given predicament similarly, or
whether they should give special weight to someone’s “local” responsibility.28 The latter
view might be akin to the view that in promoting self-interest it can be rational to give
special weight to one’s present desires in contrast with one’s past or future desires. I’m
inclined to think that egalitarians should treat local responsibility similarly to the other
components of global responsibility, but I’m not certain of this. As long as “local”
responsibility is given the same weight for everyone in similar contexts, it may be both
22
consistent and desirable for egalitarians to give it special weight in assessing comparative
fairness. This is an important issue requiring further thought.
The issue of responsibility has an important bearing on the relationship between
comparative fairness and comparative justice. I used to think that “comparative fairness” and
“comparative justice” were merely terminological variants of the same substantive position,
with some people favoring one expression, and some the other, because of slightly different
linguistic intuitions about the notions of “fairness” and “justice.” For example, some people
who have the linguistic intuition that there can only be an injustice where there is an agent
responsible for perpetrating the injustice, might prefer to describe inequalities resulting from
natural events as involving comparative unfairness rather than comparative injustice. Hence,
some who balk at the claim that it is unjust that some people are born blind, and others not,
nevertheless agree that such inequalities are bad, and that the comparative unfairness of the
situation constitutes a reason to alleviate such inequalities if we can. Still, I now think that
comparative fairness and comparative justice represent two substantively distinct positions
related to the role that responsibility plays in the two positions. Let me explain why.
As indicated previously, I believe that comparative justice involves comparative
desert, where the desert is moral desert. So, as seen, the idea is that saints morally deserve to
fare better than sinners, on the supposition that there is a meaningful notion of free will, and
that the saints and sinners are responsible for their moral characters. So, as discussed
previously, on my view the responsibility that is relevant to comparative justice is the
responsibility for one’s character as a moral agent.
Advocates of comparative fairness also care about moral desert, because they, too,
believe that it is, in a sense, unfair if a less morally deserving person fares better in
23
proportion to her character than a more morally deserving person does. So, like advocates of
comparative justice, advocates of comparative fairness will think it is fundamentally
important if people are responsible for their characters, and they need not, for example,
object to inequalities between saints and sinners where those inequalities are morally
deserved. However, I believe the notion of comparative fairness allows greater scope to the
importance of responsibility than the notion of comparative justice. For we can be
responsible for our choices, and their consequences, as well as our characters, and this is
relevant to what we regard as comparatively fair in a way that extends beyond the narrower
notions of moral desert and comparative justice.
Suppose John and Mary are both fundamentally decent people, but that they choose
different, morally permissible, life paths. Consistent with meeting all his duties and
obligations to others, John freely and responsibly chooses a path that will predictably benefit
himself more than other paths available to him. Mary freely and responsibly chooses a path
involving many selfless actions. She is constantly choosing to put others before herself, with
the predictable result that she will end up worse off than she would have had she followed
John’s path. Naturally, John ends up better off than Mary.
From the standpoint of comparative justice, the situation is unjust. Mary is worse off
than John, who is no more morally deserving than she. Indeed, it is arguable that Mary is
more morally deserving than John, so that in a perfectly just world, she would fare even
better than John. The advocates of comparative fairness may agree that in an important sense
it is unfair that Mary fares worse than John, but in another important sense it is not unfair.
Mary could have chosen to be as well off as John, without in any way shirking her duties or
responsibilities. She freely and responsibly chose a path that she knew would leave her
24
worse off than John. Given this, it is arguable that her situation relative to John’s is not
comparatively unfair overall. Accordingly, perhaps the egalitarian need not object to the
inequality between them, notwithstanding the fact that she had laudable reasons for choosing
her path. In any event, the objection to the relative conditions of John and Mary seems
weaker on grounds of comparative fairness than on grounds of comparative justice, and this
is because the notion of fairness may give weight to considerations of responsibility beyond
responsibility for one’s moral character.
Similarly, suppose I can choose between two morally neutral lifestyles. One will be
harder in the short run, but ultimately benefit me more over the course of my life. Being
fully apprised of the differences between the two lifestyles, I freely and responsibly choose
the easier path; while Mary, confronting the same choice, freely and responsibly chooses the
harder one. By hypothesis, Mary and I may be equally morally deserving. So, from the
standpoint of comparative justice, it may be bad, because unjust, if I end up worse off than
Mary. But egalitarians may not object to the inequality between Mary and me. Though in
one sense it may be unjust, and unfair, for Mary to fare better than I, in another important
sense it is not comparatively unfair for me to be worse off than she. I could have been as
well off as she, but freely and responsibly chose another path knowing its ramifications.
Having made my bed, as it were, I now have to lie in it. Under such circumstances, one
might reasonably think that, overall, the inequality between Mary and me is not (especially)
unfair, and hence not (especially) objectionable.
Finally, consider the case of someone with a high moral character, overall, who
responsibly commits a crime to promote some desirable end. Compare that to someone with
a decent, but not especially high, moral character, overall, who responsibly follows the law,
25
perhaps simply for the self-interested reason that he fears jail. In the ideal world, the first
person should fare better than the second from the standpoint of comparative justice,
assuming that both are responsible for their characters. But is it comparatively unfair if the
first person fares less well than the second, because she spends time in jail? Well, in one
important respect—one where the notion of fairness tracks the notion of justice—it is
comparatively unfair. But in another important respect, one that gives significant weight to
individual responsibility for our choices and their consequences, it is not comparatively
unfair. One person responsibly chose to break the law, another to abide by it; whatever their
moral motivations and characters, it would be unfair if we simply ignored the role that their
responsible decisions played in their predicaments.
In sum, I now think that though they are related, the notions of comparative justice
and comparative fairness differ. On the assumption that there is a meaningful conception of
free will, both attach important weight to the role that individual responsibility plays in the
formation of our moral characters. So both pay attention to the extent to which we are
morally deserving of faring well relative to others. But comparative fairness also attaches
weight to the role that individual responsibility plays in our choices and their consequences.
Moral desert is central, but not all that matters from the standpoint of equality as
comparative fairness. By the same token, as important as individual responsibility is, it is
circumscribed, from the standpoint of comparative fairness, by the kinds of considerations
presented in the fourth and fifth points noted above. Finally, as indicated, the discussion here
assumes that there is a meaningful conception of freewill and individual responsibility. If
there is not, then I believe that comparative justice and comparative fairness will amount to
the same, egalitarian, view. In that case, all inequalities will be both morally undeserved, and
26
ones for which no one is responsible; hence, all normatively significant inequalities will be
both comparatively unjust and comparatively unfair.
B. Equality of what?
Many egalitarians have debated the following question: insofar as we are
egalitarians, what kind of equality should we seek? A host of candidates have been